Chapter Six

      She wanted nothing to do with him! The thought still rankled a week later. It didn’t help that for a girl who’d claimed to dismiss him, she was everywhere. Cam couldn’t go to a musicale, a ball or a sailing party without her being there. So much for the idea that London was a big place. He couldn’t seem to avoid her. Worst of all, she’d grown an appendage otherwise known as the Marquis of Chatham. She was on his arm, laughing, smiling, entrancing. Chatham was clearly smitten with her. Today was no different. She was dressed in a day gown of simple white muslin with a square neck and tiers of ruffles at the hem and charming Chatham effortlessly.

      ‘It seems Wenderly has some competition,’ Cam remarked drily to Sutton from their vantage point at the Countess of Claremont’s Richmond picnic. Caroline and the others in their group had wandered off a short distance to view the river, giving him a few minutes alone with Sutton.

      Pavia and Chatham had wandered off on their own somewhere too, he’d noted, and the thought sent a hard surge of something through him. There were only so many things two people stole away on their own to do. Hot images of their one night swam to the fore followed by a bolt of undeniable jealousy. Had Chatham kissed her yet? Did he, too, know the sensual press of her lips, how she moved her whole body into a kiss? The way her breasts felt pressed against one’s chest? Of course, she’d been naked then, naked for him. Irrationally, he wanted to be the only one she was naked for, the only one she kissed like that.

      ‘And Caroline?’ Sutton asked rather bluntly, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Does she have some competition as well?’

      Cam shot his friend a hard stare. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

      Sutton chuckled. ‘It means you haven’t been able to take your eyes off Pavia Honeysett since the Banfields’ ball.’ Sutton cocked his head, considering. ‘Nor she you, I think. She watches you when you’re not looking.’ Sutton plucked an orange from the basket on the blanket and began to peel.

      She watched him? Cam schooled his features into bland neutrality, careful not to give away any reaction as to how that made him feel. A schoolboy exhilaration shot through him. He’d laugh at himself if Sutton wasn’t already doing it for him. He was twenty-eight and a soldier who’d seen the world. He was well past the crushes and infatuations of a green boy, yet here he was, fantasising about a woman he couldn’t have. ‘So, she’s decided to go to the highest bidder?’ Cam asked, definitively forgoing a response to Sutton’s question.

      ‘I think that’s what her father has decided,’ Sutton replied evasively.

      Under other circumstances, Cam would find little to dislike about Chatham. The man was an excellent horseman, a solid marksman who responsibly held his seat in the House of Lords and kept a superior wine cellar. He supposed women found the Marquis attractive in other ways. He was tall and kept a clean, well-tailored appearance. He would, indeed, be an extraordinary catch for a Cit’s daughter. She would be able to vault to the top of society’s rungs with such a marriage.

      ‘She won’t get a higher bid than that.’ Cam couldn’t keep the despondency out of his voice. He couldn’t compete with the Marquis. He’d never before felt any lack in his assets. He had a comfortable income, a small manor house in Little Trull in Somerset, which he never visited, political connections through his grandfather and opportunities to use those connections if he ever left the military. But those assets paled in comparison to what a marquis could offer, even one in financial straits. And yet she looked at him.

      Cam rose from the blanket, feeling suddenly restless. ‘I’m going for a walk.’ He needed space. Perhaps if he had a moment’s privacy he could regain perspective. He felt as if he hadn’t had a moment to breathe on his own since he’d been home. His days and his nights were filled with family and the family’s plans for him. There’d been dinners and parties, and councils with his grandfather and his father, like the one this morning before he’d set out for Richmond, only this time Caroline’s father had been there, too. It had been conducted pleasantly enough. No one was putting his thumbs to the screws. But the message was the same: It was time to make the engagement official. Caroline had waited patiently through three Seasons. It was hinted that she’d even passed on other offers.